Nowadays lots of software claim to In the late seventies, large 'business' computers were mostly used for relatively simple operations like payroll or accountancy or sales data.

 

Slowly, but steadily those - mostly COBOL written- applications evolved to   more complex software.

 

But the cultural environment around also changed: the eighties were the golden years of management issues, ... As more and more relevant data was stored, businessmen and analysts all around the world began to realize they could not only use those data for their original purpose, but also link them and get interesting statistical data from them, hence creating some management reports from the previously stored data.

 

The term "MIS" or Management Information System describes applications developed to provide managers with information about sales, hr, purchasing, invoices, inventories, and any other data that would allow to manage the business.

 

In todays management information systems, a dashboard is the one of the possibly multiple user interfaces that a manager can use to manage his business.

 

Over time those dashboards have evolved in a multitude of versions depending on if they are related to strategic, operational, global, sales, hr or any other perspective.

 

 

Bibliography and Links:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_system

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboards_(management_information_systems)